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Change the Ownership of a Distribution Group

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Applies to: Exchange Server 2010

In Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, users can create and manage distribution groups and distribution group membership. These users are delegated ownership of the group by the ManagedBy property. The default owner of a distribution group is the user or administrator who creates the group. However, you can use the EMC or the Shell to change the ownership of a distribution group.

Looking for other management tasks related to distribution groups? Check out Managing Distribution Groups.

Note

In addition to being one of the group owners, users must be assigned a management role assignment policy that contains the My Distribution Groups and My Distribution Group Membership roles. By default, all users are assigned the My Distribution Groups and My Distribution Group Membership roles in the default role assignment policy. You only need to add these roles to the policy if you previously removed them. For more information, see Add a Role to a Role Group.

Use the EMC to change the ownership of a distribution group

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Distribution groups" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Recipient Configuration > Distribution Group.

  2. In the result pane, select the distribution group that you want to modify.

  3. In the action pane, click Properties.

  4. On the Group Information tab, under Managed by, you can perform the following tasks:

    • To add an owner to the distribution group, click Add, and then select the user from the Select Mailbox or Mail-Enabled User dialog box.

    • To remove an owner from the distribution group, select the user, and then click Remove icon.

      Note

      You can't remove the last owner from a distribution group. You must add a new owner before removing the last one.

  5. Click OK.

Use the Shell to change the ownership of a distribution group

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Distribution groups" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

This example replaces the current owner of the distribution group Volunteers with the new owner john@contoso.com.

Set-DistributionGroup -Identity Volunteers -ManagedBy john@contoso.com

Note

If you want to add more than one owner to the distribution group, separate users by using a comma. If you don’t include the current owners in the command, the current owners will be replaced by the new list.

This example adds John and Ayla to the list of owners and bypasses getting permission from the group's current manager Administrator.

Set-DistributionGroup -Identity 'contoso.com/Users/Summer Interns'-BypassSecurityGroupManagerCheck -ManagedBy 'Administrator', 'Ayla','John'

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-DistributionGroup.